monty's gamble: market garden

Updated 11/30/2009

2009 WBC Report   

  2010 Status: pending December Membership Trial Vote

David Long, NC

2006-09 Champion

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Event History
2003    Walter Garman     11
2004    Mike Rinella     20
2005    Jim Eliason     22
2006     David Long     16
2007    David Long     14
2008     David Long     14
2009     David Long     10

PBeM Event History
2006    Tod Whitehurst     31
2007     Tod Whitehurst     29
2009    Jim Eliason     24
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  David Long         NC    09    114
  2.  Jim Eliason        IA    09    101
  3.  Tod Whitehurst     VA    09     94
  4.  Andrew Cummins     uk    09     49
  5.  Mike Rinella       NY    07     42
  6.  Rob Mull           CO    07     33
  7.  Ken Dunn           MD    08     27
  8.  Anthony Daw        UT    09     24
  9.  John Haas          DE    07     19
 10.  Walter Garman      MD    04     16
 11.  Todd Treadway      VA    06     12
 12.  Buck Karpowitz     DC    06     12
 13.  Scott Moll         VA    07     11
 14.  Mark Gutfreund     KY    09     10
 15.  Peter Phelps       au    09      9
 16.  Allen Hill         MD    06      9
 17.  Bob Jamelli        PA    04      9
 18.  Michael Kaye       MD    09      7
 19.  Paul Nied          KS    05      6
 20.  Chris Roginsky     PA    03      4
 21.  Trevor Bender      WA    07      3
 22.  Charlie Budzinski  NJ    06      3
 23.  Wyatt Bogan        VA    05      3
 24.  Joel Tamburo       IL    03      3
 25.  Nathan Trent       VA    09      2

2009 Laurelists                                        Repeating Laurelists 

Andrew Cummins, UK
2nd

Tod Whitehurst, VA
3rd

Michael Kaye, MD
4th

Nathan Trent, VA
5th

NA
6th


Past Winners

Walter Garman, MD
2003

Michael Rinella, NY
2004

Jim Eliason, NY
2005

David Long, NC
2006 - 09

Flying dice are about as close to an action shot as you'll get at a gaming convention.

Andrew Cummins and Kevin Hammond venture a bridge too far during Kevin's first WBC.

Four Times a Champ ... Will There be a Fifth?

The field dwindles, but the man on top remains. Dave Long took his fourth consecutive Monty's Gamble title in 2009, from the smallest field yet that nonetheless included several of the game's strongest players. In the first round, Mike Kaye defeated Nels Thompson with a crushing opening by XXX Corps and excellent play to take objectives Best and Grave early. With a weather change on the 17th, Nels decided to move the German defenders forward, through Arnhem, to try to hold Nijmegen for the win, but later, when Mike's Allies had nine VPs and only lacked Nijmegen and Wyler at the end of the 18th, and neither likely to hold, Nels conceded.

Although the field was small, there were three new players. Nathan Trent defeated Todd Treadway in a friendly game between two beginners. Tom Stewart was the first of Dave Long's three victims. There were two especially interesting opening round pairings, in the GM's view. Andrew Cummins dispatched Scott Moll in one of them, denying the Point2Point podcaster's latest bid to take a title in one of the area impulse games.  Tod Whitehurst ended newcomer Kevin Hammond's area impulse week in the other strong pairing. Two people withdrew heading into Round 2, leaving the contestants in the uncomfortable position of facing an eliminator in the round, which could have been the de facto Final. But serving as an eliminator, Kevin took his second swipe and missed, falling to
Andrew Cummins this time. Tod Whitehurst fell to Dave Long in the other semi game, setting up a rematch of last year's Final between Long and Cummins. Proving his dedication to the genre, after taking third in the Breakout: Normandy tournament, and with a couple of games of Monty's Gamble under his belt, Kevin went on to play a third game, a friendly, with former champ Jim Eliason, who missed this year's tournament when he reached the semis in another.

The Final itself was one-sided, Cummins playing the Allies to Long's Germans. The opening landings appeared fair to both sides, but Andrew re-rolled his early loss in St. Odenrode and failed to clear, and later could not recover the Advantage at Valkenswaard. After bombarding twice, Andrew came within three pips of recovering the marker on impulse 3, failing to clear the area. Dave immediately blew the Eindhoven bridge, and Andrew took Veghel and Uden, but rolled a '3' to end the day. He followed with a XXX Corps activation to overrun Valkenswaard and work his way around Eindhoven the long way, but his position had been severely damaged. There was no Eindhoven bonus VP for the Allies, and XXX Corps was not in position to get far up the road on the 18th. Andrew regrouped into Driel to contest the southern end of the Arnhem bridge, and the18th started on impulse 0 with Dave failing to nick Driel with a bombardment, and Andrew
reinforcing Arnhem. On impulse 1, Dave blocked Zeeland and discovered as he looked at the position that Andrew had erred and left Veghel open, so he occuppied Veghel, too. On impulse 3, and still without the Advantage, Andrew rolled the dreaded snake-eyes to end the 18th and seal the outcome of the game, and the Tournament.

Monty's Gamble will need to clear double obstacles if it is to continue at WBC next year. Having failed to make the Century list again, it will need not only a boost during the membership vote but a new GM as well as I am signing off for next year. Any volunteers should submit an event form before the December vote to get the game on the ballot.


Monty's Gamble PBeM Tournament:

The third Monty's Gamble: Market Garden PBeM tournament has concluded on schedule. We began with 24 players who were paired at random and were given the flexibility to agree amongst themselves which side to play (we allowed the players to do this throughout the tournament). Jim Eliason was the top finisher preventing Tod Whitehurst from claiming his third title in a row.  This year the Germans took a slight advantage in wins, 13 to 11 for the Allies.  It still proves that this is one of the most balanced tournament games still being played.
 
Below is an AAR of the final game written by Jim.  It was the most unique game of MGM I've ever played and even with poor dice it could have turned around at any moment which is a tribute to the excitement that this game can produce.

Tod's note that the game was unique was a big understatement. Bizarre was more like it. The paratroops started well; Grave and St. Oedenrode were cleared at dawn. Tod used the Advantage for a double impulse 0 to assault Wolfheze (which worked), take Arnhem and the Son bridge all at once. This turned out badly since XXX corps was a disaster. The first day ended on impulse 3 and the whole of XXX corps assaulted and failed to even clear Zone F. Except I retreated the last unit out so I could have a fresh mobile unit in Eindhoven for the next day. This gave Tod 17 supply I could have denied him, but that extra fresh unit did turn out to be crucial. 

After the first German impulse of the18th, Monty's boys were looking at a delay unit in Valkenswaard from the 59th division, and two units backing it up in Geldrop. Eindhoven had seven units with 18 steps in it, with a defense of 9. Tod went around Eindhoven, and it was still German-controlled at the end of the third day. But the Allied dice were very poor and despite the day going 12 impulses, XXX corps got no point units across the Wilhelmina canal until regroup. The 180th division, which usually has to guard Zeeland on the 18th, was sent instead to Aarle and Nuenen. These guys plus Rink moving around from Acht and the fresh SS unit from Eindhoven held Neunen until impulse 7. The road was open to Uden, but only the two artillery units were still fresh. 

While XXX corps struggled, the paratroops continued to do well. The Red Devils captured Elden and the Arnhem bridge and a big SS assault on the city caused only 1 CP. I could have prevented the fall of Elden by barraging Driel, but I opted for a bombardment instead, which failed. This could have been a crucial error on my part, but turned out to be moot. The 101st captured Best, and the XXX corps artillery motored through on their way to Uden. Most of the Germans starting in Zone C were sent west to stop XXX corps' access to the MaasRiver, and the 82nd captured Wyler on impulse 8. 

Meanwhile, the Germans were digging in, in and around Zeeland. On Monty's first impulse of the overcast 19th, there were five fresh (including an artillery) and one spent units in Zeeland, two fresh and two spent units in Mill, and a fresh unit in Volkel blocking the road to Mill. He had no units with the MP to assault Zeeland or Mill until all the units there were spent, and only three that could assault spent units, and none of them were tanks. And the Germans had the Advantage. Clearing the block rapidly would have allowed a formidable force to assemble for an attack on Nijmegen since the day started on C and an OR of either Zeeland or Mill would give a +3 sunset drm and likely the second very long day in a row. But it was not to be. Allied dice stayed ice cold. XXX corps and Gds division artillery bombardments shredded the defenses, but too slowly. A 9-1 attack against eight steps failed to clear Zeeland. It was finally cleared on impulse 7 by the last unit able to attack, but the day ended the same impulse, dooming any chance of a reasonable attack on Nijmegen (which was going to have five fresh units in it with two more able to reinforce), and prompting Tod to resign. 

To add insult to injury, all the units of the 82nd able to get to Wyler had been disrupted by SS artillery fire, and the artillery park in Pannerden on the 20th was going to be defended by five FLK units. Wyler was very likely to be recaptured and Tod might have had to abandon it during regroup to avoid its loss also costing a sunset drm or even the Advantage if I needed to spend it early in the turn. 

Tod kept his good cheer throughout this total dice blowout and I commend him for his tenacious and courteous play and good conduct of the event.
Additional laurels were earned by:

3) Anthony Daw, UT
4) Peter Phelps, AU
5) Mark Gutfreund, KY
6) Andrew Cummins, UK

 GM      Nels Thompson  [1st Year]   NA
   bryan_n_thompson@yahoo.com   NA

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